


Unwritten In Plain Sight

by firjii



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Early Relationship, F/M, Gen, Happy Ending, Mild Angst, Nervous Fenris, literacy struggles, writing a love letter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-29
Updated: 2018-01-29
Packaged: 2019-03-10 21:11:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13509861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firjii/pseuds/firjii
Summary: Still struggling to articulate his feelings for Hawke in the midst of his newfound literacy, a perfectionist Fenris labors over writing her an affectionate letter as indirect thanks for her tireless efforts to teach him.





	Unwritten In Plain Sight

His eyes glimmer in the candlelight. His chin twitches twice. He swallows. No. This will not get the better of him. He has endured torture. He has endured torment. He has endured the unspeakable. He will _not_ let _this_ outwit him. He owes her this much, at least.

Even so, he peers down at the parchment again. His fingers, stained dark with ink, toy the blank margin, now a little buckled and ripply with sweat from his hands. Foolishness. He’d assumed that he could achieve his goal on the first attempt.

He squints at the paper, his eyes bleary from both the late hour and his efforts:

_It would seem that I am less fettered now. My past remains and I can never wish it away, but you have shown me that –_

He stops before reading the rest. There isn’t much more on the page, after all. The problem isn’t the words. They are both legible and free of errors. But their meanings are empty. They are worthless – because what _has_ she shown him? How can he summarize it? He has learned to read so many words now, but _all_ of them fail him for this task.

He hesitates. The last four attempts weren’t half as eloquent, yet – 

No. It won’t do. He crumples the paper up tightly. He tosses it long and far. It lands with a tiny patter amid other scraps and crumpled pages. 

It’s his twelfth attempt, and he’s scarcely any closer to completing the task. He sighs. His elbows reach far over the table as he quietly places his head in his hands. Perhaps it simply cannot be done in one sitting, or even one night. Perhaps it needs more thought in any case. From what he’s gleaned from Varric, few letters such as this one are created quickly or easily.

It must be perfect. She hasn’t seen much of his writing yet. He’s been careful to follow her direction as closely as possible, but he hasn’t idly written his thoughts down – not in her presence, anyway. Speech can be parsed out, even nuanced. Written words are more decisive. They must be the right ones. He will not accept any less, and neither should she. She has tried so hard to show him what freedom can mean. He must show her that he understands that.

But he barely understands the meaning behind the few precious words that he wishes to say. There are only three of them, but they somehow seem to mean more than entire books – and even though he knows how to write them, he hesitates to declare them for the world to see. Perhaps he isn’t ready. Perhaps he misunderstands the meaning behind them, even if he _does_ know how to spell them. Perhaps it isn’t his place to mention them at all.

She doesn’t know. Of course not. How _could_ she? They’ve come so far, and yet she still knows so little. But it isn’t her fault. That’s how he intended it. That choice is his to bear, not hers. He won’t make her decide. It would be above and beyond what even she would be willing to do – and yet there is very little he’s seen her be _unwilling_ to do for a friend. And he – he is so much more than a friend to her now, just as she is to him.

Offering twice to stop for a meal, offering to carry his share of the spoils when he’s injured, offering to stay with him in his home when he’s unhappy about something but never once demanding that he explain himself – she freely gives so much, but never as a debting game. Among her friends, she never hides a trick within a favor. Aid is aid and justice is justice.

He always knew what a reprieve was – _barely_. It often only loomed in the distance. It was always a dream over too quickly after too short a night of sleep, or else simply a reward denied because of a misstep: too slow of a kill, too brief of an intimidating stare, too halfhearted an attempt to please or obey.

But Hawke shows him other things, and none of them are as petty as a reprieve. Perhaps it’s only because of their reading lessons together, so brief each time yet so effective. Perhaps he’s only more aware of the world because now he can see just how many words exist, even in mere city records or hasty notes passed between bandit merchants.

He hasn’t told her. Of course not. How _could_ he? She might laugh, although it’s hardly a secret. The very first words he memorized – the first ones he was able to write down in his shaky but ruthlessly determined hand – were, of course, _free_ , _yes_ , and _no_. But soon after that, always alone, he labored to learn her name. The letters often danced out onto the parchment in the wrong order, their sounds seemingly tricksters in written form who were specially crafted with the sole purpose of taunting him. Their meaning is as difficult to find for him as magnanimity in a magister. He can learn them but rarely remembers them.

Despite his progress, rapid by all accounts – especially for someone whose first language wasn’t Common – her name has eluded him somehow. He’s a quicker reader than writer, but Varric and Hawke have both assured him that the skills will eventually balance each other out.

Given enough time, he can already copy down dictation – he knows the meanings and intent of the words, after all. He’d made sure of that. He’d kept himself awake countless nights on the long journey to Kirkwall. He’d forced himself to listen to others’ drunken ramblings, merchants’ dull trade discussions, soldiers’ guttermouthed slang, anything at all to speed his comprehension along. He can imitate three accents, though the words feel clothy in his mouth sometimes when he tries.

But speech is different. Barring blood magic or other cheating, thoughts are private. They can be stifled, or even forgotten. Speech can be rephrased if misunderstood or denied if it offends someone. Words on a page – they are undeniable so long as they’re kept away from embers. They needed to be measured, calculated, judged. Moreover, they needed to be _fitting_. The words need to be suitable and the quality of the lettering needs to match them. A hurried missive or an insult can be scrawled – in fact, he takes unexpected and distinct pleasure in doing so. But this is different. It needs elegance.

It has been peculiar to him so far. He’d always known what a book was, what secrets written instructions could hold, what explosively damaging potential each word could have on the page – and yet to understand what was actually there is still another matter.

To be able to read them is hardly like teaching communication to a toddler. He is already far more articulate than most people he’s ever met, and surely more so than all but a handful in Kirkwall. Verbally, he can sound as educated and high-born as he wishes. He knows more words than some Chantry scholars seem to, and in more than one tongue. But the idea that thoughts can be forever frozen from a certain moment, a certain motivation – it is still sometimes as unfathomable as the idea of Hawke only using her magic for good.

He can write his own name (though Hawke almost constantly chides him thus far for forgetting to capitalize it, a practice which uniquely baffles him when referring to himself). He can usually even guess at others’ names by their sounds, even if they’re unfamiliar names. But whenever he’s tried to write Hawke’s name, it’s as if his mind develops a stutter. 

He’s told himself time and again that her name is like a bird, only slightly different. But Hawke isn’t like a hawk at all. She’s too fierce _and_ too graceful. She’s a wolf, silent but for the moments when she must speak. She only moves to action when she must. She only takes life when she must – and even then, she seldom finds pleasure in it.

He blinks. His face, bleary and a little pink from a few renegade tears, suddenly emerges from his hands. An idea: just a flicker, but perhaps enough. His hand shakily clutches the charcoal as his wrist awkwardly curls around on the last scrap of parchment on the desk:

_We came to Kirkwall for different reasons, but monsters and magisters both carry death with them wherever their shadows touch the earth. Death itself is just, even if the reasons for it are not. But we both chose life, and we have run long enough. Life is not always a chase. There are moments of rest. There can even be moments of ease. You have shown me their importance. I did not think to look for them before now. I did not think that the world had enough room for them._

He stops. There it is. There are only a few steps left to take on this long path, and now his feet are tired.

His shoulders slump wearily even as he clenches his fists. He puts the charcoal down. He glances at the parchment. It has fairly few smudges. It will do, but he must switch tactics all the same. These next words must stand firm and tall, like a weapon forged with the same lyrium forced into his flesh. Above all else, these words must matter. They must be unflinching, even if their meaning is also kind.

He reaches for the last quill on the desk and dabs it carefully into the inkpot, but his hand cramps uncertainly and hovers several inches above the page.

No, he cannot say it. She doesn’t deserve his idle fumbling any more than he deserves _her_. For an instant, his chin constricts more tightly than his fingers.

The candle flickers and winks, the wax scarcely more than a hot pool of ignited liquid now. The flame soon disappears. He sits in the dim moonlight, unfazed. After a moment, the pale glow from the sky calms him, focuses him, reassures him. It reminds him of her. It reminds him that –

He smiles, a small and slight gesture but no less sincere than a wide grin. It rises from him, irrepressible and tenacious. Yes, that will do: still three words, but one of the only kind phrases he can remember from Tevinter – one of the only phrases he will always _hope_ to remember. Scores of slaves utter it every day as a sign of desperate submission, but he has found another meaning in it. She helped him find it.

His quill finally touches the parchment:

_I am yours, Hawke._

He rests the quill down and stares at the paper in the dim light. His eyes close.

“I am yours,” he whispers.

**Author's Note:**

> Probably not technically a very accurate depiction, so sue me xD. This is bearing in mind that Fenris already has some literacy at the time of this story and that his problems stem more from articulating his feelings than actual language mechanics/literacy problems. Since he’s usually very formal when communicating with anyone and also strikes me as a perfectionist, I can imagine what trouble he would have when it came to anything resembling a love letter. I just wanted to see what the dorky, G-rated version of this might look like.


End file.
